


Learning To Dance

by tielan



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Friendship, Romance, S02E02 The Once And Future Queen, Teaching, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen's quite aware of the insanity of it all: a pig-keeper is playing the noble, being taught a courtly dance by a maidservant, while a prince sits in a humble smith's cottage and watches them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning To Dance

**Author's Note:**

> I believe someone tendered the prompt 'learning to dance' and this was the result.

The first Gwen hears of the dance is as she's asking Morgana for the afternoon off.

"I can only give you until just before dinner, Gwen; there's to be a feast for the champions this evening. I'll need you to help with my dress." Morgana's roll of the eyes speaks feelingly of her thoughts on the matter; too many of these functions involve her being on display for the knights and lordlings of Camelot and its allies. "I'll probably have to dance with Sir William, too, since he's won the tournament."

"He was something of a success, wasn't he?" Gwen says, unable to quite hide her smile as she clears away the honeyed wine she brought her mistress to soothe her throat after the morning's cheering.

Of course, Morgana notices, and arches her brows. "Enamoured, Gwen?"

She laughs, then. "Not at all," she says, not wholly honest.

It's not the man Camelot knows by face as 'William of Daire' who makes her heart pound, who can infuriate her with his arrogance one moment, and disarm her with his humility the next; it's the man whose actions Camelot unknowingly honours who has tied his favour around Gwen's heart, just as he took her favour to tie around his arm this morning.

"Well," said Morgana, eyeing her with a little suspicion, but apparently willing to let it go, "I hope he's not got two left feet. Did we get the blood off those slippers last time?"

"Sort of." They're still a little pink at the tips. Gwen thinks she could get one of the cook's helpers to put an embroidery on it that would disguise the bloodstains from when Gaherys of Wendall stomped on Morgana's toes...

Gwen's mind freezes in sudden horror.

"Gwen? Whatever's the matter?"

"I...just remembered something I must do. Down in the town. Right now. Um..."

Morgana laughs, a lilting peal in the closed chambers. "Don't let me keep you, Gwen, since it's obviously important."

"I'll be back before sunset, my lady."

Gwen bobs a curtsey and runs.

\--

"I don't see the problem," Merlin says with all the idiotic patience of a man who blatantly _does not get it._ "William did fine at the dinner the other night--"

"That was _dinner_ , Merlin!" Gwen tells him, her voice low and exasperated as they pass the guards at the castle gates on their way down to her house. Why are boys such idiots? "Anyone can eat a dinner! This is a dance - a formal dance in which the champion will be expected to lead and partner Morgana!"

"So? Not everyone can dance."

"Not everyone can dance _well_. If you're a nobleman - as William of Daira allegedly is - then you should have had lessons."

"And William, being the son of a pig farmer a half-days wagon ride out of town--"

"Hasn't."

Merlin considers this for a moment, the grand architect of this insane scheme into which Gwen has been dragged as accomplice and assistant. Then he looks at her expectantly. "I guess you'll just have to teach him, then."

Gwen seriously contemplates smacking him over the head with the covered bowl of dinner she's taking down to her house to prevent Arthur from having to send Merlin back up to the castle to fetch some dinner.

Hitting Merlin won't help Sir William, but she thinks it will do wonders for her temper.

\--

Her house isn't exactly the great hall of Camelot castle, but she learned to dance in smaller spaces.

" _I'm not suffering this alone, Gwen!_ "

Around and around and around they practised in Morgana's chambers, slide-stepping this way and that, turning only to bump into the table corner or the linen press. Mostly, they giggled their way through the stumbles and the bumps - except for the time Morgana turned to face an 'outside' partner, and smacked her forehead on a candelabra arm.

"You don't even know what dance it'll be," offers Arthur from his comfortable position behind the table.

If he wasn't the prince, Gwen would think about whacking him over the head the way she contemplated hitting Merlin before.

Satisfied with both his success at the tournament, and buoyed the prospect of a whole day before he has to return to the castle and his princely responsibilities, Arthur Pendragon has decided to stay put while she teaches William to dance. Naturally, he's making fun of her attempts.

"Merlin can speak with the musicians." Gwen refuses to be distracted - not by Arthur Pendragon, nor anyone else. "The starting dance is usually the simplest one, anyway."

"You notice that?"

"You don't?"

Maybe that's a bit cheeky from a maidservant to a Prince, but the lines have become blurred in the last few days - in the last few hours since he kissed her.

Gwen refuses to think about how she kissed him back.

Still, he doesn't seem angry at her impudence now, merely grinning at her before he takes a swig from his mug. Gwen ignores the way her heart bumped into her ribcage from Arthur's grin, like Morgana and the candelabra, and looks back at the lanky William, who's looking interestedly from her to the prince.

"It's mostly a matter of timing and the beat," she begins.

"I'm not very good at singing."

"You don't have to sing." Gwen smiles in reassurance. "Just listen to the pace of the music."

There's no music in her house.

Arthur refuses to even hum, let alone sing. Of course. Not that she'd expect him to.

Instead, Gwen hums beneath her breath as she teaches William the opening steps, forward and back beside his partner before turning in slow steps around her, first turnwise, then widdershins. He follows her actions and instructions obediently, good natured amidst the incongruity of his situation - a pig-keeper playing the noble, being taught a courtly dance by a maidservant while a prince sits in a humble smith's cottage and watches them.

It's not too far from sunset when Gwen ends the lesson. William isn't polished, but he doesn't have to be. No-one in the court expects polish from a provincial noble - just the basic courtesies.

William can do that.

He's a fast learner. She reflects that if she had to teach Merlin this in the same amount of time, he'd fall flat on his face and make a fool of himself. Which isn't much more than is usual for Merlin, but William is as ready as he'll ever be.

"Can you remember it all?"

He thinks about it. For all that he looks like a village idiot, he's not stupid; just thorough and thoughtful. "Yes," he decides at last.

"I've a suggestion." Arthur says from the table where he's been watching them with amusement and the occasional correction when William gets it wrong. Gwen thought he'd have grown bored with this after a while, yet he's remained behind when he could have gone out and into the afternoon town, his identity hidden beneath his cloak. "Show him what it looks like."

"Sire?"

When he slides out from behind the bench and offers her his hand, though, Gwen stares.

"You've just spent the last few hours teaching him how to dance; shouldn't he at least get to see what it looks like when done properly?"

He makes it sound innocent. But when she slips her hand into his and lets him lead her out into the space behind her table, Gwen feels it's anything but.

Morgana always claimed Arthur was the worst partner when dancing. She said she felt like he was mentally going through his sword defence routines whenever he danced with her.

Gwen's fairly certain he's not going through his defence routines now.

Two steps forward, two steps back; turn to the side and circle around; brush fingertips, step left, brush fingertips, step right; don't look any higher than the collar of his shirt, for God's sake, Gwen; don't savour the lingering trace of his fingers across your skin before he turns and breaks hold; don't look at the broad chest beneath the open throated shirt...

But she dares a glance up at his face as his fingers close around hers during a turn when they should lie flat, soap-rough palm to sword-calloused palm.

Gwen's sure feet stumble and the steps falter in her mind and not just in her moves, because Arthur Pendragon is looking down at her with a not-quite-but-almost smile, and a look she's never seen on his face in all the years she's known him.

They've both come to a stop. Gwen can't look away from his face, from his eyes, from something perilously like tenderness. The silence inside the house is the sacred awe of something bigger than either of them, a breath held in waiting, the silence before a promise...

A soft cough reminds them that they have an audience.

William is watching, brows raised, mouth in something like a twitching smile. Gwen lifts her chin as though to challenge him; and he sobers in an instant, courteously polite.

"So," Arthur says, clearing his throat a little. "That's what it's supposed to look like."

"I'll take the lesson to heart." William bows. It's functional rather than elegant, but he has the movements down pat, even if he lacks grace. "Thank you, my lady. Sire."

Gwen can't quite help her smile. "You're welcome, Sir William." Perhaps he's just the son of a pig-farmer, but he'll make a charming courtier. He'll never be polished, but his good nature shines through - even through the veneer of nobility that they've managed to put on him in the last few days.

Arthur turns to Gwen, crisp and brisk, as though he is the one in charge. "Right, then. You should be off to the castle to help Morgana dress while I give William some last minute advice..."

She pauses at the door to look back on a Prince advising the son of a pig-farmer the finer points of court life, and smiles to herself.

Then she slips up to the castle to help Morgana dress.

She'll be back later.


End file.
